Category: Up To Speed

Links to keep you up to speed on what’s happening in Cincinnati and what we can learn from other cities.

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Up To Speed

Rookwood Pavilion offering upscale outlets an urban destination

Rookwood Pavilion offering upscale outlets an urban destination.

Believe it or not, Rookwood Commons and Kenwood Towne Centre once were in a heated battle over which shopping destination would become the region’s premier stop. Due to a number of factors, including a messy eminent domain case that prohibited Rookwood from expanding, Kenwood has taken firm control of that title. Rookwood hasn’t died, however, and it may be looking to become a destination for unique retailers entering urban markets. More from the Business Courier:

The Nike factory store now under development at Rookwood Pavilion is part of a larger plan to reposition the 20-year-old retail center as something you’ve probably never heard of: an urban infill outlet. The architect of that strategy, Mark Fallon, says outlet retailers pay higher rents, attract fashion-conscious shoppers and are looking to expand into urban areas.

“This opens us up to 200 quality tenants in the future,” said Fallon, vice president at Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate Inc., which handles leasing for the 257,000-square-foot Rookwood Pavilion in Norwood. “It offers (outlet tenants) an urban infill location, as opposed to being out in the hinterlands.”

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Report: retailers ‘vastly overestimate’ the role of free parking

Report: retailers ‘vastly overestimate’ the role of free parking.

We hear time and time again that urban retail centers need free and plentiful parking, and without it the customers will not come. New research, however, shows that the actual evidence for such claims is scant at best, and that retailers “vastly overestimate” the role free parking plays in their success. More from The Atlantic:

The review was conducted earlier this year by the cross-party policy group London Councils. The group performed a thorough meta-analysis of the existing academic and public agency research on the role of parking in urban commerce. It also sent parking questionnaires to all 33 London boroughs (comprising the city center, as well as inner and outer areas) and conducted market research with shoppers at three commercial centers in the outer regions. The findings can be reduced down to four main reasons retailers don’t need free parking to thrive.

1) Free, plentiful parking often hurts more than it helps, 2) shopkeepers overestimate how many customers arrive by car, 3) they also overestimate how much car customers spend, and 4) a mix of retailers is more important than parking supply.

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Will Cincinnati hit another home run with Tower Place redevelopment?

Will Cincinnati hit another home run with Tower Place redevelopment?.

Cincinnati’s efforts to transform its center city are being noticed nationally, and the recent sale of Tower Place Mall is just the latest action made by the City that is turning heads elsewhere. The question now is will Cincinnati hit another home run with Tower Place Mall as it has with Fountain Square, Washington Park, The Banks, Smale Riverfront Park, and Fort Washington Way? More from Bloomberg Businessweek:

The city has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into a major transformation that’s still under way. It began in 2006 with the reopening of downtown’s central Fountain Square after a $49 million renovation. Developers have spent more than $600 million on new apartments, restaurants and a park in the half-mile space between the Bengals and Reds stadiums. A $322 million, 41-story office tower that’s now the city’s tallest opened last year. And on Monday, a 156-room boutique hotel had its grand opening following a $51 million renovation.

Also in the works is a streetcar connecting several popular downtown-area spots slated to open in 2015 and a $400 million downtown casino set to open in the spring. In the nearby Over-the-Rhine historic district, dozens of shabby but beautiful buildings have been transformed into bars and restaurants popular among yuppies and hipsters, and a once crime-prone park underwent a $48 million overhaul to become one of the city’s favorite spots for concerts, outdoor movie viewings and flea markets.

As those projects thrive, popular retailers like Banana Republic, Victoria’s Secret and Chic-fil-a fled from Tower Place mall, which sits in the heart of it all. Just a handful of businesses still operate at Tower Place, and foot traffic is low even during the holidays.

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Up To Speed

Atlanta’s bold plan for repurposing its unused railways already paying off

Atlanta’s bold plan for repurposing its unused railways already paying off.

The multi-modal Atlanta BeltLine project is spurring new investment throughout inner-city neighborhoods that had long been forgotten in the southeastern city. What lessons might Cincinnati be able to learn from Atlanta’s experience as it looks to repurpose its unused railway corridors? More from the Washington Post:

Since a new urban trail opened last month in an old rail corridor in Atlanta, it has drawn a steady stream of joggers, dog-walkers and cyclists to take in spectacular views of the skyline and neighborhoods once seen only by train. Hundreds of trees have been planted along the paved 14-foot-wide path, while artists have added works such as windmills made of bicycle parts and colorful murals on concrete overpasses.

The path, known as the Eastside Trail, is part of a $2.8 billion plan to transform a 22-mile railroad corridor that encircles Atlanta into a network of trails, parks, affordable homes and ultimately streetcar lines. The Atlanta BeltLine is an example of rails-to-trails projects going on around the country, including in New York and Chicago, that aim to make better use of old rail corridors by creating better-connected and more livable urban areas, providing alternatives to car travel and spurring economic development.

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Up To Speed

Work begins on $15 billion Manhattan infill project

Work begins on $15 billion Manhattan infill project.

Earlier this week, New York City officials celebrated the groundbreaking of Hudson Yards, a new $15 billion office and residential district to be built above the Long Island Railroad’s yard on Manhattan’s west side. The development’s 16 towers will create nearly as much new office and residential space as currently exists in downtown Cincinnati. An extension of the #7 subway serving the development will be completed in 2014 and new buildings should be ready for occupancy in 2015. More from the New York Daily News:

The groundbreaking ends years of deal-making between developers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the rail yard and will lease the development rights for 99 years for more than $1 billion…The 26-acre site, to be built on platforms over the rail facility, will be the largest private real estate development in the history of New York.

For New Yorkers trying to wiggle out of a recession, Hudson Yards could mean thousands of jobs and hundreds of units of affordable housing…Urban experts see Hudson Yards as a means for New York to stay competitive with Shanghai, London and Paris as a key 21st century city.